


From The Frozen Waters

by JanecShannon



Series: Down Where It's Wetter [1]
Category: Atlantis (UK TV)
Genre: Aeson arrives in England, Gen, Pre-Series, baby!Jason, toddler!Jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 15:12:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanecShannon/pseuds/JanecShannon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aeson fled Atlantis with his infant son but a storm takes him to a land far stranger than his wildest imagination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From The Frozen Waters

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the wonderfully snarky [thegirlwhowasntthere](http://girlwhowasntthere.tumblr.com) for betaing.

The sea is cold. Far colder than Aeson could ever remember it being, even in the coldest of winters in Atlantis. He does his best to hold Jason above the water but the boy stopped crying some time ago. The silence terrifies him more than the screaming had broken his heart.

He does not understand how this happened. He had done exactly as the Oracle had said, had found a ship to flee by sea (why had he listened? Poseidon clearly had not favored him in the civil war so why would he trust the Oracle that he would be favored now?). A storm had hit, swift and deadly. The ship had been small, a mere fishing boat that could be manned by one person, it had been no match for the rough waves.

Aeson had been pulled under by the currents. He knows that he had, clinging to his infant son with one arm and trying his hardest to surface with the other. Aeson had drowned, he is certain.

Is this Hades?

It is certainly nothing like the stories.

His clothes are gone, he doesn't even have a blanket to wrap Jason in. Not that it would offer protection from the biting waters but it would be better than nothing, surely. For a time he had thought to kick his way towards land, or to at least make an effort, but the shore he had been so careful to keep in view before is nowhere in sight.

What he can see seems muted, the ocean far darker than the bright blue waters he is used to. Even his skin seems more grey though, admittedly, that could be from the cold.

Still, alive or dead he has few options but to cling to the piece of driftwood he has found and pray to Poseidon or any other god or goddess that will listen. He begs them to save, if not him, then please, _please_ save his son. His beautiful, happy child whom it would seem he has doomed because he could not bear to leave him in Pasiphae’s traitorous, power hungry hands.

A sudden splash from nearby drags him from his reverie. An odd, white object attached to a thin rope (that Aeson incredulously notes is far too thin to hold any sort of weight) has landed near him. He follows the rope with his eyes to a boat with a couple old enough to be his own parents. Both watch him with concern.

The woman's mouth moves but he is too far to hear her words; the man nods and shouts, “Grab ‘hold!”

It is then that Aeson’s foggy mind catches up. They are here to rescue him. More importantly, they are here to save _Jason_.

He forces his legs, frozen and numb with cold though they are, to kick him closer to the white object. Somehow he transfers his weight from the driftwood to the object, opting to slip his entire arm in the hole rather than simply grabbing ahold of it. He does not trust the grip of his fingers.

The rope goes taut and surprisingly does not snap. When he is next to the boat, they reach down to pull him from the water but he offers them Jason first.

“My son,” he begs in a hoarse, cracked voice. “Please, my son.”

He does not know what language he speaks, the words taste foreign on his tongue but come as naturally to him as the Atlantian he has spoken for nearly thirty years. They either understand his tone or the words though because the woman reaches down and takes the boy from his father's arms.

Once the man has pulled Aeson into the boat, he sees that she has tucked Jason against her chest within her shirt.

Jason does not open his eyes. Does not stir or react to the warmth in any way.

Aeson pays little mind to the blanket that appears around his shoulders. He only has eyes for his son. The woman coos at the child, rubbing his back through the warmth of her shirt.

Then, a miracle: Jason’s eyes blink open.

“There we go. Such a strong boy, you are,” the woman murmurs. “Get us home, Giles,” she instructs, “They both need warmth, especially this little’n.”

The man, Giles, nods and takes a seat in the back of the boat. Aeson does not understand the magic that makes the boat move. The man does not row and there is no sail, yet move it does.

Time passes in jolts and spurts. At some point, he becomes wracked with full body shivers. Painful aches fill his extremities as feeling begins to return. Jason begins to cry.

Sometime later he wakes to find himself now clothed in a soft, loose set of tunic and trousers. The bed is small, but the blankets are warm. He feels weak but forces himself into a sitting position so he can look at the room he is in. Jason is not with him.

The door opens just as he gets out of bed and the woman enters carrying what appears to be a brightly colored waterskin.

“Oh! Good, you're awake,” she says then, with no preamble, grabs a blanket from the bed and wraps it around his shoulders. She hands him the waterskin, but it is unlike any material he has ever felt before.

“Jason?” he says.

“The boy? Out playing near the fireplace,” she tells him. The moment he knows, he begins to move towards the door. So far these people have been kind, but Aeson has very recently become aware of the dangers of trusting. Still, she makes no effort to stop him though she does follow, “Quite a happy little boy you've got there, at least once we got him warm with a bit of milk in him. Poor thing was so confused and, cor, the lung on ‘im!”

Once out the door there is only one direction to go, so he follows the narrow hallway until he hits a larger room. From here he can hear the light giggles from his son and he speeds up without even thinking about it.

His son stands in the center of the room, tottering between Giles and another man closer to Aeson’s age.

Jason, too, is no longer naked but instead wearing what Aeson assumes to be a spare tunic of the woman’s. Jason let’s off a squeal when he spots his father and tries to change direction mid-step. He winds up on his bottom but doesn’t seem to mind as he immediately begins to crawl to his father on all fours instead.

Aeson stoops to pick his son up and clings to him. “Oh thank the gods,” he mutters as it hits him full force how close he actually came to losing this precious bundle of joy. Jason has little concern for the worries of his father though, and instead plants a slobber-covered hand on Aeson’s face with a squeal and babbles nonsense.

“Come have a seat,” the woman offers. He drags his eyes away from Jason long enough to see her fluffing the pillows on a fabric covered chair. She waits until he's settled before she speaks again. “I am Edie MacDowell and since you have nowhere else to go, you will be living with me,” she tells him with all the authority of a queen. Judging by the clothing she has provided for them, the weave so fine Aeson can barely see it, perhaps she is queen of this domain.

“Mother!” the young man objects. “You don't know he has nowhere else to go.”

“Nonsense, of course he has nowhere else: he was floating naked in the ocean. No, I'll not hear another word about it. He's staying with me,” she declares then kneels in front of Aeson, grasping his hand not holding Jason. “I prayed for guidance and direction then you two washed up on my doorstep. It _cannot_ be coincidence.”

“Then it is the will of the gods,” Aeson says gravely, all too aware that she had been the answer to his pleas to the gods as well. “You saved my son's life, I am in your debt.”

“Oh, god, not you too,” the young man, groans. Aeson looks at him just in time to watch him roll his eyes. He is either very brave or very stupid, Aeson decides, to show such disrespect. “You cannot just order a stranger to live with you because of a coincidence you've decided is a sign from some made-up gods, mother!”

Stupid, Aeson decides. The young man is not brave just very stupid.

Edie smiles at Aeson, squeezes his hand once, before letting go and standing to face her son.

“Why not? He seems perfectly happy with it. _Will of the Gods,_ he said,” she looks particularly smug when she says the last line.

“You know nothing about him!”

“I know enough.”

“Mother!”

“Duncan,” she answers calmly and waits for his next protestation.

“They've both been just suffered a massive case of hypothermia,” Duncan says with forced calm. “If nothing else they should be in hospital.”

Edie waves her hand dismissively. “Nonsense, they're fine now. And anyway we have to get them IDs before we could send them to a hospital. I have a few favors I'm going to call in, don't worry.”

“That is hardly my main concern about this!”

It seems that is the last of his arguments though, because the two simply stare at each other for several moments after that. Finally, Edie’s face gentles, “You must return to your work in three weeks and Giles has already stayed longer than I can, in good conscious, expect him to. When he goes and you go, I will be in this big house alone-”

“I've told you you can come with me,” Duncan protests.

“And jump from place to place living out of a trailer or boat cabin? No. There are those who enjoy that sort of life but I am not one of them.” Duncan opens his mouth but Edie holds up a hand to silence him. “I'll not say it again. This is my home, I may invite any I choose to stay with me.”

His jaw clenches and he glares at his mother. “Fine,” he mutters and turns on his heel for the door.

Edie winces at the loud slam that follows.

“I do not want to come between you and your son,” Aeson tells Edie’s back. She sighs as her shoulders drop.

“You haven't. He'll go sulk in the woods for bit. He can be made to see sense once he's calmed down some.” She turns to scrutinize him with a critical eye. “In the meantime, come. You have not yet eaten and I have some more milk warming on the stove for the boy.”

* * *

The food is strange, different than he is used to but it is filling and plentiful. Neither Aeson nor Jason ever go hungry under Edie’s roof. The milk seems watery to Aeson's taste, but when he comments on it to Edie (worried that she is being cheated by her milk seller) she simply laughs and tells him she will buy him whole milk next time.

Aeson had not been aware there was any kind of milk that was not wholly milk. Why anyone would _want_ diluted milk was beyond him.

The food is not the only strange thing in this land. The gods (or, more accurately, the gods Aeson grew up with) do not exist. They are relegated to myths and legends. Edie is considered an oddity for the gods she follows (the Old Gods, she calls them and in the same breath tells him that they too are regarded as nothing more than stories by most).

The air is always cold in this land. England, he's in England. It's always cold. He's told it's the summer months but it's far colder than Atlantis ever was. Edie warns it will only get colder.

It does.

But still, the clothing he is given is warm and Jason is young enough it hardly makes a difference to him. Edie bundles him up warm and keeps a fire burning.

The boy learns to walk. He speaks his first words in Atlantian, although Edie does not recognize them as such and discounts them as baby babble. Aeson does not know where Jason heard them for he hasn't spoken Atlantian since arriving in England. He teaches his son both the language of his birth and English.

Duncan does eventually come to accept Aeson's place in Edie’s house, although it is begrudgingly until one day he corrects a translation Duncan is working on. Atlantian is apparently called “Ancient Greek” in this world. His correction leads to some important discovery. Duncan warms to him after that. He tells Aeson he prefers to be called Mac (a shortening of his family name) and that Edie is the only one that all calls him Duncan.

Edie smirks when she finds out. “There is no such thing as coincidence,” she says, not for the first time. Aeson had come to find it is a favored saying of hers.

Aeson is invited to “dig sites” where he learns to work the equipment. He has a knack for guiding a rudimentary “submarine” Mac designed. He hits fewer unexpected currents. Mac and Aeson make a name for themselves and Jason grows up running free amongst ancient buildings and crumbling bones.

When Jason is three, Aeson loses sight of him. He doesn't worry, most at the site regard the boy as a good luck charm, there is never smoother sailing than when he is aboard. It is only at dinner time when Jason does not come that Aeson and Mac begin to worry.

They find him on a lifeboat that had detached and fallen to the water. It is nothing short of a miracle that the currents did not carry the lifeboat away, Mac says. It comes to Aeson like a blade through the stomach. “Touched by the gods,” he murmurs because for just a brief moment it had been his wife’s eyes reflecting back at him. Softer, gentled, yes but Pasiphae’s nonetheless.

Jason is touched by the gods as his mother was. They, who have so little power here, are still guiding him.

After the incident, Aeson's eyes have been opened. He watches as his son delightfully throws himself into the ocean every time they go to the beach. Other children do too but Aeson feels a pull that tells him this is more.

That this is Jason, Poseidon’s son and God on Earth, answering a call he cannot understand. The desire to return to the homeland he has never known and yet remembers.

This is when things begin to go wrong. It starts small, unnoticed. An injury he didn't notice he had for he felt no pain from it. A small sore appears and he thinks nothing of it, until it doesn't go away. He loses more and more feeling on his skin. His nerves deadened to all but the harshest of touches.

He had a suspicion and goes to an off-site doctor. She calls it leprosy, tell him that it can go years unnoticed before the symptoms are big enough to be noticed. The doctor tells him he's probably had it between three and five years need on the progression of the disease. Aeson knows exactly when and how he was infected.

He begins to plan.

He directs Mac to Atlantis, convinces him to try to find the lost city. The crowning glory for any Greek archaeologist. He cannot help but use Mac's greatest desire against him.

Searching goes easy. It helps that he has a decent idea of where to look. They get the permits from Greece to go diving in their waters.

There is a feeling in his stomach. A call from Poseidon himself. Before he gets on the sub, he knows he will not be coming back.

He gives his necklace to Jason, a reminder of who he is and where he comes from even if the boy does not know it.

Then he gets on the submarine. Jason smiles and waves at him from the boat as Aeson slowly sinks in the water.

He will never see his son again, he knows.

He raises his hand in a final farewell.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr [here](http://janecshannon.tumblr.com). Come say hi, or let me know what you thought :D


End file.
